"Whose Civil Rights" Examines Civil Rights Groups' Challenge to Race to the Top

"Whose Civil Rights" contains Tilson's reflection on the challenge mounted by a group of civil rights leaders to the Obama administration's Race to the Top program.

Tilson slams the groups for coming out "against meaningful reforms of a public school system that systematically, all over the country, gives black and Latino students the very worst teachers and schools, thereby trapping black and Latino communities in multi-generational cycles of poverty, violence and despair."

CCSA is proud that in California, charter schools continue to demonstrate higher academic performance among African American students. For the past four years, African American academic performance has been greater in charter schools than traditional public schools. And in 2008-09, African-American students in charter schools had greater Academic Performance Index (API) Growth scores than their peers in non-charters statewide and in almost all major school districts, including 47 points higher in Los Angeles Unified, 48 points higher in Oakland Unified and 211 points higher in San Francisco Unified. This finding holds true for elementary, middle and high school grade levels statewide.

It is no wonder that, as the Wall Street Journal points out, "support for charters among ordinary African-Americans...is strong and has only increased dramatically in the past two years."